Oliver (Olly) is the youngest of 50 of the world's leading explorers featured in "Faces of Exploration" alongside such luminaries as Buzz Aldrin, Dr. Jane Goodall, Sir Edmund Hilary, Cousteau and Steve Fosset. He is regarded as one of the most influential and pioneering explorers of his generation.
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EXPLORER
Oliver has led numerous expeditions to destinations including Mongolia, Mauritania, Niger, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, China, Syria, Jordan, the Amazon and New Guinea. His expedition resume reads like a real Indiana Jones. He has lived with tribes of cannibals, was forced to walk 1250 kilometers across the Gobi Desert for his survival, was hunted down by bandits on the Chinese-Tibetan border, escaped from the People's Liberation Army as they chased him across the Shangtu Grassland, has been imprisoned on trumped-up charges of espionage in a number of different countries, ran six consecutive marathons across the Sahara to raise money for Lupus, has had his horses stolen by rustlers, retrieved video tapes from a kidnapped family in Nicaragua, and even led a Royal Geographical Society Expedition to research the Grass Silk Road.
Oliver is also the founder of the non-profit iNOMAD that works to communicate discovery through education and the media and also Director of Digital Explorer. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Explorers Club, the Scientific Exploration Society and one of the founding members of the Cordon Rouge Club.
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INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
Oliver is a critically acclaimed international investigative reporter. 2009 saw Olly join the multi-award winning international investigative series "Unreported World" on UK's Channel 4 where he reported from the Chinese-North Korean borders about the plight of North Koreans fleeing into China including thousands of women who have been forced into prostitution or sold as brides after fleeing persecution and starvation. Critically acclaimed across the UK press, The Observer called it: "The most depressing and dark program in the best investigative series on television."
His other reports have been featured on ABC, BBC Channel 4 and Al Jazeera English among others but there's no story that's off-limits: he's covered war, human rights, indigenous peoples, environmental affairs, politics and development. If anything, Olly specializes in breaking international stories and reporting the unreported - whether it's being smuggled through the jungles of Northern Burma to report on the illegal trade in hardwoods, drugs and gems that keeps the military junta in business or confronting Chinese politicians over accusations of illegal imprisonment and torture, or whether he's heading into the Sahara to record evidence of ongoing chattel slavery or even filming undercover in Al Qaeda gun-markets - it's in these places, for some reason, that Oliver seems to be the most effective.
He was been nominated and short-listed for Best Current Affairs Program 2008 (Asian TV Awards), US Livingstone Award for Young Journalists, and nominated for Emmy's and Overseas Press Awards. Oliver was formerly a producer at ABC News including managing ABC News' Asia news operations from their Beijing HQ. Oliver speaks Mandarin badly and French (worse) with a smattering of Mek, Kombai, Uighur and Mongolian. He's trying to learn Spanish. Regarded highly in his industry, Oliver has chaired numerous conferences and seminars on investigative reporting, broadcast journalism and filming in hostile environments.
